Prior to the present invention, a chamber of this general type has been disclosed in the prior art. See, for example, the WABCO publication "Membrane Cylinders 423000, Part 2" that was issued in January, 1979. This publication generally discloses a chamber for a membrane cylinder that is connected for fluid communication with the atmosphere. As can be seen therein, this membrane cylinder chamber is connected for fluid communication with the environment, i.e., atmosphere, by a breather opening. This breather opening, located through a wall of the chamber, is identified in this publication by the letter "C". Through the use of the breather opening, the ambient pressure within the chamber will be substantially maintained at atmospheric pressure, even when a temperature change occurs within such membrane cylinder chamber. In addition, such ambient and atmospheric pressure will be maintained when the volumetric size of such chamber changes, as a consequence of the membrane cylinder changing its relative position within the chamber upon activation. In other words, this chamber is permitted to breath through the breather opening provided through the wall of such chamber.
Because of this chamber breathing action, the breather opening enables fluid communication of an ambient media, such as, air, into the interior portion of such chamber. However, this media may often contain a variety of undesirable contaminants entrained therein. Such contaminants may be in the form of solids, liquids, steam particles, and/or a combination of these and other contaminants. These contaminants, in turn, can cause other source operating problems within the chamber and especially with the movable components contained therein. Such problems include, but are not limited to, wear caused by the solid contaminants and rust caused by the liquid and/or steam particles. Obviously, such wear and/or rust shortens the useful life of the equipment.